Trip to Pearl River

It was the week after midsummer when I called a friend, Erik Holmlund, to
ask if he felt like a two-day fishing trip would be a good idea. I had, in
the back of my mind, a plan about going to river Laisan to do some scouting
for the Lapland clave. Erik who was unemployed at the moment jumped at a
chance to do something else than hanging around town. We had both at the
moment gotten a preliminary offer to do some work in Canada, so it felt like
we might as well try to get some fishing in before the possible trip to
another continent. Erik being a beginner at fly-fishing although a long time
spin fisherman has been fishing the mountain region for almost as long as
me, and has one of Sweden's oldest fishing web sites. He is in all a
likeable guy with a perfect interest.

Driving towards river Laisan I told him that I'd been keen on visiting Pearl
River in the municipality of Jokkmokk for quite some time. Ever since the
age of fifteen when my grandfather's (and mentor's) younger brother talked
about a visit made to the area some years after world war II. He had
described a fishing so fantastic and colorful that I longed to go there.
Once I grew older I had a couple of years when girls and cars tended to be
of more interest than fishing, and the story about Pearl river had grown but
a distant memory. Even though I've been fly fishing actively for more than
15 years since this period it was only until a year ago when I read an
article in a Swedish fishing magazine about the area that the memories of
that story came back to me. Erik being the friend he is said, - What the
hell, you can go to Laisan another day, let's go to Pearl River instead.
Said and done, we skipped the take off road towards Laisan and turned north.
Jokkmokk is situated almost on the Arctic Circle and this time of year we
knew we would have the ever-shining sun above our heads, something that I
feel adds an extra spice to the whole experience. After 450 kilometers of
driving we were finally in Jokkmokk. A quick visit to the liquor store, the
grocery store and another visit to the local tackle shop for permits and we
drove straight west towards the river.

http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl12.jpg

http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl14.jpg

On arrival we decided to try the 4,5 kilometer long fly-fishing only stretch
first. Sadly this stretch did not live up to its expectations, mainly
because they made a this stretch out of a stretch with a continuous riffle,
without any pools or calmer stretches. Anyway we caught a number of decent
sized graylings and a nice brownie, but then decided to move on. The first
days fishing went really bad, it wasn't that we didn't catch any fish but
they weren't of the size we had been told would exist in this river.

http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl09.jpg

The daylight having the effect that we fished until we realized that
midnight wasn't going to be the preferred time for dinner since we were
starving. Jumping into the car and driving to a spot that we noticed would
make a good camping site, we set up camp. This spot is located by another
river, one that has Pearl River as a tributary, the Smaller Lule River. We
set up camp at the Purrki Rapids, these rapids are fairly big so the fact
that the water levels were low was appreciated. After a quick sandwich we
decided to give the fishing in these rapids a try, something that would
prove a good choice.

All day we had been trying all sorts of flies, this had in turn shown us
that heavily weighted nymphs was the thing that would provide dinner.
Fishing started out wit several smaller fish and I gathered it was the hard
current that made our nymphs fish to shallow. Walking up to a small pool at
the top of the rapids I cast my line into the white water letting the
currents press line and nymph down towards the bottom. What happened next
was DINNER. In five casts I hooked four graylings at slightly more than a
pound (0,5 kg) on the fifth cast I hooked an even larger fish behaving
completely different from the graylings, a sizeable trout was on. And to
quote Myron Buck aka riverman "Big fish on...big fish off". Myron, I feel
that you would've enjoyed these rapids.

Late that night we had made a fire over which we grilled grayling stuffed
with red onion, salt a few grains of crushed pepper, lemon juice and olive
oil in aluminum foil. Say what you want about life, NOTHING compares to the
experience of the solitude and wilderness in such an area, and if you can
sit by a campfire drinking beer, eating freshly caught grayling enjoying the
company of a friend, what else is there to wish for.
There was a funny episode about 2 o'clock in the night. Suddenly a car comes
out of nowhere and a woman steps out, it proves she is from the Tourist
administration board and she is out to meet fishermen to hear what they
think about place and how we found information about the fishing. 2 o'clock
in the night....talk about taking her work seriously. Her explanation being
that it's hard to find the fishermen during the day since the area is so
vast, so she visit the tent places that she knows and get her feedback there
and then.

Waking up the day after we packed our gear and set out to do 5 or 6 hours of
fishing before returning home. MAGIC, absolutely magic, something had
happened during the night and where there was no fish to be seen the day
before there was suddenly an abundance of rising fish. To my perception
nothing in the weather, water temperature and water levels was different and
yet everything when it comes to the fish was different. We caught more fish,
larger fish and in the places where you would expect them to be. One little
episode, I was standing in the middle of a large calm stretch, having chosen
to enter the river at that point while Erik moved upstream, and caught
grayling after grayling surpassing lb1 (0,5kg). Actually I moved 15 meters
over two hours catching close to 30 grayling, the biggest one weighing lb2
(0,9kg). During this two hour period I couldn't see what Erik was up to but
I know now that he beat me in size catching a grayling over 1 kg.

http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl04.jpg

http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl10.jpg

http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl13.jpg

http://biphome.spray.se/bo_lindfors/...er/pearl11.jpg

I wonder, have you ever noticed how fishing has a tendency to get better
when you know you must be getting home??

(All pictures, I'm sorry to say, have a bluish tone to them, this is due
to a malfunctioning scanner)

/ Roger
Daytime engineer
Lifetime flyfisherman
If you feel like it, visit http://biphome.spray.se/angler/ for info on
flyfishing in northern Sweden, Lapland